The Trump administration appears to share the belief of prior administrations that it can transform the Middle East in America’s image. But Washington’s record in the Middle East is catastrophic. It is time to bring home America’s troops.

Despite working with the Kurds against ISIS, the administration has no stomach for a military game of chicken with Turkey. Which means the U.S. almost certainly would abandon the Kurds again if the Turks attack Manbij.

In the six-year Syrian civil war, which may be about to enter a new phase, America faces a familiar situation. While our “allies” and adversaries have vital interests there, we do not. The Assads have been in power for the lifetime of most Americans. And we have never shown a desire to fight in Syria. Have the generals taking us into Syria told the president how and when, if ever, they plan to get us out?

An independent Kurdish state is in America’s strategic interest in our ongoing proxy war against Iran. Starting with diplomatic recognition and support we should be prepared to render whatever assistance is necessary to preserve Kurdish independence.

Though America was born of secession, the U.S. establishment since the Cold War has been far more trans-nationalist and globalist than a great champion of new nations. Perhaps that is because the New World Order proclaimed by Bush I in 1991 envisioned the U.S. as the benevolent global hegemon. Tribalism appears to be doing to the Bush New World Order what it did to Mikhail Gorbachev’s Soviet Union.

During the campaign President Donald Trump had at least one very sensible foreign policy belief: the U.S. should stay out of purposeless wars in the Middle East. Now his appointees are dragging us deeper into the Syrian conflict.

The botched coup is likely to act like the infamous Reichstag fire under the Nazis and accelerate the Erdogan government’s race to the dictatorial bottom. He is likely to become more vindictive and paranoid—understandably so, because he does have enemies everywhere.

Turkey's President Erdogan is moving Turkey in a more Islamist direction. Worse, his government has aided the Islamic State. Despite agreeing to assist Washington, the Erdogan government appears to have played the U.S., directing most of Turkey’s fire against America’s Kurdish allies. Shooting down the Russian aircraft was even more irresponsible.

Backed by U.S.-led airstrikes and buoyed by battlefield successes, Kurdish fighters kept up an offensive through northern Syria on Tuesday, driving Islamic State militants out of a town near the extremists' de facto capital of Raqqa.

It appears that Obama is pursuing a two part strategy that involves much more than air drops of humanitarian relief, but no one really knows how deeply into the Middle East's savage religious war Obama plans to take us.